Lake County, Indiana - Plan Commission, Planning and Building Department

Lake County, Indiana

county

2293 N. Main Street, Suite 11, Crown Point, IN 46307-1899

Required

Required

Permits are issued by the Plan Commission's Planning and Building Department at 2293 N. Main Street, Suite 11, Crown Point, open Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central Time, and can be applied for on paper or through the County's own online portal. The paper route is the Permit and Plan Application, of which the applicant completes Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 - a reroof is checked under Section 3 as REMODELING or REPAIR, and Section 8 carries a dedicated ROOFING line for the contractor's licence number. Section 6 is a notarised affidavit, and the County requires an owner or contractor affidavit stating the type of work and who will do it. Two copies of the legal description accompany every application, and three copies of a scaled site plan accompany all of them except an electrical amperage change. The Department states that "All applications for Building Permits must be signed by the owner of the property or a contractor holding a CURRENT LAKE COUNTY CONTRACTOR'S LICENSE." Online, the portal is open to homeowners and to active licensed Lake County contractors in good standing, the property must be in unincorporated Lake County - the portal checks this from the parcel number, which must end in "001", "002", "007", "012", "013", "016", "028", "032", "037", "041", "044" or "055" - and the applicant needs a scanner, a printer and a sworn affidavit in PDF for each contractor. The County is blunt that a lapsed contractor blocks the job: "You will not be able to file online (or in person) unless a contractor you use is in good standing", and a contractor drops out of good standing on an expired or unverified bond or insurance certificate as easily as on an expired licence. Filing online costs a non-refundable $3.00 filing fee plus a $1.49 payment-processor charge per application, and paying the permit fee by card adds 2.5% or $1.49, whichever is greater; the permit fee itself can be paid in cash or by cheque in person instead. Once the application is approved the applicant has thirty days to pick the permit up and pay the fee. A permit is valid for two years, work must be commenced within six months or the permit is void, and inspections are booked on the 24-hour ordering line at (219) 755-3700, prompt 1.

Building code content in Indiana is not a county choice. One- and two-family dwellings in unincorporated Lake County are built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates by reference the 2018 International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings, first printing August 2017, and applies statewide. That rule was filed November 26, 2019 and formally readopted November 18, 2025, and it is the newest rule in Article 14 of Title 675. Under IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) the state building rules take precedence over any ordinance of a political subdivision covering the same subject matter, and under IC 22-13-2-3(c) a city, town or county may not adopt an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than those rules. The County adopts the state codes from its own side, in Section 5.A of the Unincorporated Lake County Building Code No. 18, which lists "2020 Indiana Residential Code: (675 IAC 14-4.4-1) Based on: 2018 International Residential Code (1st printing) with Indiana Amendments, Effective December 26, 2019" and adopts the listed codes "and shall include later amendments to these articles as the same are published in the Indiana Register or in the Indiana Administrative Code with effective dates as fixed therein". That is a floating adoption rather than a frozen one, which is also what IC 22-13-2-3(b) supplies by statute for any Indiana ordinance that cites the Indiana Administrative Code, so the County tracks the current state rule automatically and there is no stale local edition to catch you out. Building Code No. 18 itself was approved by the Lake County Council on March 9, 1988 and by the Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission of the State of Indiana on April 5, 1988, and has been amended since by Ordinances 18A-1 and 18A-7. One caution about the licensing side: the contractor examinations the County sets are written on the 2020 Indiana Residential Code and the 2012 International Building Code, and those are exam reference books, not a separate code a Lake County roof is built to.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT COUNTY-SET, and unconditional. Indiana localities cannot vary this: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance that conflicts with or is more stringent or more detailed than the commission's rules. The operative text is published first-hand by the Indiana State Building Commissioner, on Indiana Department of Homeland Security letterhead, in the Ice and Water Shield Update memo of 2020-02-25 (revised), which reproduces 2018 IRC R905.2.8.5 in full: "A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than ¼ inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the rood deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5 Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." Note the memo reproduces a typo in the enacted text it quotes ("rood deck" for "roof deck"); the reading is not in doubt. 675 IAC 14-4.4 amends R905.2.8 only by deleting the word "approved" (14-4.4-86) and does not touch R905.2.8.5, so the model text governs as written. About drip edge

Required — Lake County is one of the 27 Indiana counties where the ice barrier is required outright. Indiana deletes the model IRC Table R301.2(1) and substitutes its own county by county table at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, and the Lake County row carries "Yes" in the column headed "Ice Shield Underlayment Required". This is a per county answer and not a state one. Most Indiana counties, Marion (Indianapolis) and Hamilton (Carmel) among them, carry "No" in that column and get an ice barrier only where the shingle manufacturer's written installation instructions call for one. A roofer who works both ends of Indiana should not carry the central Indiana answer north. About ice & water barrier

Not required — Lake County schedules no roof-covering or mid-roof stage. Section 15 of the Unincorporated Lake County Building Code No. 18 sets the order of required inspections, and the Planning and Building Department publishes a current handout, Inspections Required by Planning and Building Department, that lists them as they are actually called today: footing pre-pour, foundation pre-pour, foundation and backfilling, slab pre-pour, electrical service, rough-in, insulation, final building, plumbing, electrical and HVAC, plus commercial extras and the final inspection tied to the Certificate of Occupancy. Neither list has a roof stage, and neither does the residential inspection fee schedule at Section 11.H of the Code. The handout does reserve item 10, Additional Inspections, which "May be required for 'special cases' as determined by the Lake County Building Inspector", so an inspector can call for a look at an unusual job; there is simply no scheduled mid-roof hold. What the County does enforce on every inspection is procedural: no inspection is made unless the permit is visibly posted and all survey stakes are visible, notice must be given at least 24 hours ahead (a request received before 7:30 a.m. is worked the same day where scheduling allows), and a re-inspection carries a $50.00 fee that must be paid in person at the office before another inspection is scheduled.

Not required — No impact resistance mandate applies in unincorporated Lake County. The 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, was read across all 245 of its numbered sections and contains no reference to UL 2218, to a Class 4 or Class IV impact rating, or to FM 4473. Its only amendments touching IRC Chapter 9 delete the word "approved" from the asphalt shingle attachment and flashing sections, delete the word "printed" from the other flashing section, and delete one sentence from the rooftop photovoltaic section. The County's own building instrument does not add one either: the Unincorporated Lake County Building Code No. 18 was read in full across its twenty-four sections and adopts the state codes by reference without amending any roofing provision. Nor could it: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from adopting an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than the state's own building rules. An insurance discount for impact rated shingles is not a code requirement.

There is no dollar figure and no size below which a roof escapes a permit in unincorporated Lake County, and repair is named in the requirement itself. Section 7.A of the Unincorporated Lake County Building Code No. 18 reads: "A permit issued pursuant to this Code shall be obtained before beginning construction, alteration, repair, or maintenance of any building or structure in the unincorporated areas of the County of Lake or before causing the same to be done. A separate permit must be obtained for each building or structure." All twenty-four sections of that Code were read and it contains no exempt-work list of any kind. The one item headed "EXCEPTIONS" in the fee schedule is a fee waiver for units of Lake County government, not a permit exemption. On the County's own permit and plan application a reroof is filed under Section 3 Type Improvement as REMODELING or REPAIR, the fee bands being the closest thing to a threshold: the residential building fee is $10 for the first $1,000 of valuation plus $5 for each additional $1,000, with a minimum building fee of $100 and a $20 zoning fee for a remodel or repair. That minimum is a fee floor, not an exemption. Starting work before the permit issues is expensive and the Code says so: Section 13 charges anyone who begins construction before applying for and receiving a permit "a fee equal to three (3) times the original building fee", on top of any other penalty.

115 mph. Indiana deletes the model IRC Table R301.2(1) and substitutes its own county by county table at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5. The Lake County row reads 115 mph design wind speed, Seismic Design Category A, 30 psf ground snow load, 36 inch frost depth and a winter design temperature of 1 degree F. All 92 Indiana counties carry the same 115 mph figure, so wind speed is the one genuinely statewide number in that table. Wind exposure category is not set by the state or by the County; it is determined site by site.

No Indiana rule changes the model answer, and Lake County has no cap of its own to look up. Indiana's residential code is the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code. Its 245 sections contain no amendment to the reroofing and roof recover provisions of IRC Section R908, which is not referenced anywhere in the rule, and the Unincorporated Lake County Building Code No. 18, read in full, adopts the state codes by reference and amends no roofing provision. Under IC 22-13-2-3 no Indiana city, town or county may impose a conflicting, more stringent or more detailed requirement in any event. So the base International Residential Code rule on recovering an existing roof applies here as published.

7% - the Indiana state rate, with no Lake County add-on. Indiana levies a single statewide sales tax and authorises no local option general sales tax; the taxes Indiana does levy at county level are a local income tax, an innkeeper's tax and a food and beverage tax, none of which reaches roofing materials. The Department of Revenue states it on the very page that enumerates the county level taxes: "The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." How the 7% falls depends on the shape of the contract rather than on the trade. Under a lump sum contract the roofer pays the tax on the materials as the consumer and charges the homeowner no sales tax; under a time and material contract, meaning one that states the cost of materials and the cost of labor separately, the roofer buys the materials exempt for resale and collects the 7% from the homeowner on the material portion, with separately stated installation labor not included in the taxable amount. Roofing is named by the Department of Revenue as a contractor trade for these purposes.